Initiative F: Expand and Strengthen Strategic Partnerships

Updated Friday, March 16, 2018

More than 450 area school teachers, education administrators and professionals, and service organization workers attended the day-long conference on Poverty and Homelessness at Stetson said founder and director Rajni Shankar-Brown, Ph.D., associate professor and the Jessie Ball duPont Chair of Social Justice Education at Stetson. The conference’s theme was “Dismantling Oppression & Poverty: Building Inclusive Learning Spaces.”

Noah Valenstein, secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, visited the Stetson campus in DeLand on Wednesday, March 14, for one of his “listening sessions” about important environmental issues facing the state.

The two-hour meeting was hosted by Stetson’s Institute for Water and Environmental Resilience and included representatives from the City of DeLand and Volusia County, along with other environmental leaders.

The Stetson Institute for Water and Environmental Resilience may soon receive $1.3 million to create a Sustainable Farming Fund and help farmers reduce the pollution draining into area rivers and springs. This is the result of a court case involving two environmental groups, Environment Florida and the Sierra Club, and chicken-producer Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation. Under a proposed settlement Pilgrim’s Pride agreed to pay penalties, including $1.3 million to Stetson University to create the Sustainable Farming Fund.

The Institute for Water and Environmental Resilience at Stetson University helped sponsor the Volusia Water Alliance’s Fall Symposium in downtown DeLand and led a presentation on water stewardship in Florida.

Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Florida, launched a Disaster Research Project during the fall semester to assist with a disaster relief hotline providing Floridians with legal services. Stetson Law students working with the project conduct legal research for attorney volunteers helping the victims of weather disasters through the hotline.

USF Sarasota-Manatee. Photo courtesy USF. USF Sarasota-Manatee is unveiling a Direct Admission Program (DAP) this fall that offers qualified USFSM graduates direct entry into Stetson University College of Law. Under an agreement between the institutions, USFSM students will be assured entry into Stetson after meeting certain prerequisites.

By virtue of a new partnership between Stetson's Honors Program and Daytona State College's Quanta Honors, up to 16 Daytona State students per year will be accepted into Stetson's program and will receive a Stetson Select Honors scholarship, equaling 100 percent of the regular tuition and fee charges. As part of the partnership between the Stetson Honors Program and Daytona State College's Quanta Honors, Stetson faculty members will advise students from the time they first enroll at Daytona State – a possible first for such a program nationwide.

Education Associate Professor and Jessie Ball duPont Chair of Social Justice Education, Rajni Shankar-Brown, Ph.D., has been awarded an Education and Culture grant by the U.S. Department of State and the Partners of the Americas. This competitive grant will allow Shankar-Brown to travel to Brasilia, Brasil and Bogota, Colombia to facilitate intercultural exchange and work to develop programming to connect public schools in Central Florida and around the nation with schools abroad.

Stetson Law Partners to Help Veterans

Stetson Law partnered with Bay Pines Veteran's Administration Healthcare System, Bay Area Legal Services and Gulfcoast Legal Services to assist veterans with non-criminal offenses, including veteran and Social Security issues, family law, guardianship and landlord-tenant disputes. This is the 13th medical-legal partnership in the U.S., but the first involving a law school.

Stetson University College of Law's National Clearinghouse for Science, Technology and the Law is offering a complimentary two-day training for defense attorneys and prosecutors who try capital cases. The event was partially funded by the U.S. Dept. of Justice, Capital Litigation Initiative: Crime Scene to Courtroom Forensics Training.

Stetson created the Institute for Water and Environmental Resilience, a first of its kind at Stetson, will focus on water and environmental research in order to offer policy options to protect our water supply and our other natural resources here in Central Florida and beyond. Noted environmental policy expert Clay Henderson, the water institute's first executive director, hosted the Volusia County Water Summit with participants from city, county and state government leaders who signed an agreement to work together on the county's water issues. The Sandra Stetson Aquatic Center at Lake Beresford will be the institute's living laboratory.

Through a partnership with United Way of Volusia County and U.S. Internal Revenue Service Stetson students assisted in filing nearly 1,000 tax returns for members of the local community resulting in $1 million in tax refunds to lower-income residents. The program gives Stetson accounting students an excellent opportunity for hands-on experience in tax-return preparation under the supervision of faculty and local volunteer CPAs, as well as interpersonal skills through interacting with clients and the public.

For the 11th year, Stetson University will host the Naturalization Ceremony in partnership with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, when 50 immigrants from 27 countries taking the oath of citizenship to the United States.

Stetson University has been selected by the Carnegie Foundation to receive the prestigious Advancement of Teaching "Community Engagement Classification" for 2015 in recognition of exemplary commitment to student learning through community impact. Stetson partners with more than 60 local organizations to create opportunities for student learning through community impact – including agencies that focus on homelessness, economic development, education, youth empowerment, environmental sustainability, civil rights and health care.

The Volusia Center for Excellence in Education is a partnership between Stetson, Bethune-Cookman University, Volusia County Schools and New Teacher Center, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers and school leaders. The group is working on a three-year project to improve teacher effectiveness by building deeper core subject knowledge and enhancing field experience for pre-service K-5 teachers and current education students.